The disclosure relates generally to networking, and more particularly to immersive collaboration environments.
Immersive, virtual collaboration environments allow sets of workers, e.g., globally-dispersed knowledge workers, to collaborate on projects using mediums such as email, teleconferencing, video conferencing, and other networking mediums. Collaborative environments allow globally-dispersed knowledge workers to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously and, thus, readily share their information and experiences with other knowledge workers. Characteristics of a successful immersive environment often include, but are not limited to including, persistence, e.g., collaboration data is accessible throughout time, and pervasiveness, e.g., collaboration data is accessible to multiple distributed users employing multiple communication device types. For example, a knowledge worker in one country may run experiments which a knowledge worker in another country may access simultaneously or later through a collaborative environment. An immersive environment may generally specify attributes which include persistence, pervasiveness, and/or a number of dimensions associated therewith. For instance, an immersive environment may be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or four-dimensional.
In general, collaborative data that is created by members of a collaboration environment may be accessed by other members. Often, particularly for large, globally distributed, or complex collaborative projects such as those involving a relatively high number of knowledge workers, the amount of collaborative data generated may be so high that it becomes difficult to track all the collaborative data. As such, it may become difficult for a user or groups of users to locate and reuse meaningful data, e.g., data that is particularly relevant to a particular aspect of the overall collaborative project, and to make meaningful present and future use of the data.